okay. so that title is just about the ugliest sounding word imaginable, but it is what it is: the acronym for National Blog Posting Month, which i decided to participate in this year. mostly because yesterday i actually looked at my post count for the last year and it's been rather dismal. this is what happens when i get sucked into depression--i stop writing. but i'm actually happy right now, so i don't have the depression excuse. and there's a lot i've been wanting to write about. so here i am. committed to writing daily for at least a month.
so follow along if you'd like. or participate on your own blog. feel free to steal my logo on the right (my very first .pdf; i'm so proud) if you want a badge for your blog.
and that is all you get for today, because now i need to go and write some emails to my advisors.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
01 November 2009
11 August 2007
blog.
in june, i went to the mormon women's rocky mountain retreat (i think that's what it was called) with caroline and brooke. while we were there i not only ate the best carrot cake i've ever encountered (i really should have gotten that recipe), i also met fMh Lisa who was there to talk about the beginnings and evolution of feminist Mormon housewives, which she started in 2004. lisa's a riot (as were her blogging buddies, who were also at the retreat). and i love what she's done with fMh. when she invited me to guest blog on fMh a few weeks ago, i happily agreed. i've started my stint blogging over there. i imagine it will continue for a few weeks. if you're interested, please check it out.
in june, i went to the mormon women's rocky mountain retreat (i think that's what it was called) with caroline and brooke. while we were there i not only ate the best carrot cake i've ever encountered (i really should have gotten that recipe), i also met fMh Lisa who was there to talk about the beginnings and evolution of feminist Mormon housewives, which she started in 2004. lisa's a riot (as were her blogging buddies, who were also at the retreat). and i love what she's done with fMh. when she invited me to guest blog on fMh a few weeks ago, i happily agreed. i've started my stint blogging over there. i imagine it will continue for a few weeks. if you're interested, please check it out.
09 April 2007
blog.
so brooke picked my blog for the thinking blogger award. which is a lovely compliment, since i always love reading what she has to say. her blog is full of fun tidbits and recommendations and creativity and beauty. i've lifted some of my favorite pictures from her. and found wonderful children's books to recommend for all my nieces and nephews.
so, in no particular order, and because they make me think in a variety of different ways, i'm naming the following as my own thought-provoking blogs:
1. my sisters at bougainvillea and we can do it! because there's something really wonderful about knowing siblings as adults and their blogs help me to know not only what's happening in their lives, but also what they're thinking about and how they're dealing with problems that i also sometimes face.
2. seymour, to whom i owe 95% (probably more) of my discoveries in new music and a signifcant chunk of my other discoveries in the last few years. in addition to keeping me tapped into interesting trends and info, he makes me laugh. and i found my most recent life motto on his blog.
3. time is an illusion. lunchtime doubly so. full of funny little tidbits and an interesting perspective. plus she ran 'kiss of the day' for a while last fall (bring it back!), which was highly amusing. and she used the term 'bathing jersey.' that in and of itself is worth notice.
4. then there's ftrain. written by paul ford, who i don't know from adam. but he's a fabulous writer. and he's an NPR commentator, so i'm officially jealous. his posts often speak to me. and occasionally for me. he hasn't been posting much lately, but i still go peruse archives on occasion.
5. i read a few mormon women's blogs. i thoroughly enjoy both exponent II (which i occasionally write on) and feminist mormon housewives. but zelophehad's daughters most consistently gets me thinking about being mormon, intellectual, and feminist.
so there they are. five of the more than five blogs i consistently read and thoroughly enjoy. i don't like narrowing it down to five (actually six), because i wouldn't read any of the blogs i read regularly if they didn't get me thinking. but those are my arbitrary choices tonight.
if you're the sort to pass a meme along, here's what you're supposed to do:
1. If I have nominated you, you have been tagged.
2. If you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think.
3. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
4. (Optional) Proudly display the "Thinking Blogger Award" with a link to the post that you wrote.
do with it what you will.
so brooke picked my blog for the thinking blogger award. which is a lovely compliment, since i always love reading what she has to say. her blog is full of fun tidbits and recommendations and creativity and beauty. i've lifted some of my favorite pictures from her. and found wonderful children's books to recommend for all my nieces and nephews.
so, in no particular order, and because they make me think in a variety of different ways, i'm naming the following as my own thought-provoking blogs:
1. my sisters at bougainvillea and we can do it! because there's something really wonderful about knowing siblings as adults and their blogs help me to know not only what's happening in their lives, but also what they're thinking about and how they're dealing with problems that i also sometimes face.
2. seymour, to whom i owe 95% (probably more) of my discoveries in new music and a signifcant chunk of my other discoveries in the last few years. in addition to keeping me tapped into interesting trends and info, he makes me laugh. and i found my most recent life motto on his blog.
3. time is an illusion. lunchtime doubly so. full of funny little tidbits and an interesting perspective. plus she ran 'kiss of the day' for a while last fall (bring it back!), which was highly amusing. and she used the term 'bathing jersey.' that in and of itself is worth notice.
4. then there's ftrain. written by paul ford, who i don't know from adam. but he's a fabulous writer. and he's an NPR commentator, so i'm officially jealous. his posts often speak to me. and occasionally for me. he hasn't been posting much lately, but i still go peruse archives on occasion.
5. i read a few mormon women's blogs. i thoroughly enjoy both exponent II (which i occasionally write on) and feminist mormon housewives. but zelophehad's daughters most consistently gets me thinking about being mormon, intellectual, and feminist.
so there they are. five of the more than five blogs i consistently read and thoroughly enjoy. i don't like narrowing it down to five (actually six), because i wouldn't read any of the blogs i read regularly if they didn't get me thinking. but those are my arbitrary choices tonight.
if you're the sort to pass a meme along, here's what you're supposed to do:
1. If I have nominated you, you have been tagged.
2. If you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think.
3. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
4. (Optional) Proudly display the "Thinking Blogger Award" with a link to the post that you wrote.
do with it what you will.
15 March 2007
sums.
we all know that 2+2=4. right?
generally, i don't disagree with basics of mathematics (except for the whole idea of imaginary numbers; and i don't disagree with it [i mean, it's good to have a square root of -1, right?]; i just find it a little bit odd). but i think that sometimes putting two and two together is not just four; sometimes it's four and something a little bit more than the sum of its parts.
so what am i talking about? the fact that people extrapolate from this little formula, usually learned very early, the aphorism that if you have the components of something, then you have the thing itself. the statement that 2+2=5 has become shorthand for not only a logical error, but also for dangerous forms of mind control. we all know, and must not forget, that 2+2 always equals four.
the problem is that sometimes the parts of something add up to more than their sum. i may have four sunflowers lying on a table in my house, waiting to be trimmed and put in a vase of water. and they are just four sunflowers. but when i see four sunflowers laying on a table in a van gogh painting, they're more than just four sunflowers. they're also a work of art.
this is particularly true, in my opinion, of poetry. tonight on my way home, i happened to catch garrison keillor's writer's almanac for the day. the five-minute mini-program consists of interesting tidbits of literary history, factoids about authors' lives, and a poem. tonight keillor read the poem "how to tell if you're a participant or a staff (a handy guide for day programs)" by david moreau. i listened as the narrator listed all the ways in which to discern whether you are staff or participant, all the while waiting for that something that would turn this rather mundane list of statements into the magic of poetry. because poetry has magic in it. all poetry. even poetry that i dislike. i'm sorry i can't explain it better than calling it magic, but i can't. and this poem--it didn't have it. sure, it calls attention to the difficulties of being in the position of needing assistance in daily living. it nicely illustrates some of the simple things that you and i take for granted every day. and achieving that is worthy of a literary effort. but there is nothing that this work does that demands it be poetry. it would have been as effective written in prose format. the only thing that makes it poetry is the fact that it's been broken into verse shape and labeled "poem." and poetry is not like 2+2=4. words written in verse form do not a poem make. poetry is always more than the sum of its parts.
we all know that 2+2=4. right?
generally, i don't disagree with basics of mathematics (except for the whole idea of imaginary numbers; and i don't disagree with it [i mean, it's good to have a square root of -1, right?]; i just find it a little bit odd). but i think that sometimes putting two and two together is not just four; sometimes it's four and something a little bit more than the sum of its parts.
so what am i talking about? the fact that people extrapolate from this little formula, usually learned very early, the aphorism that if you have the components of something, then you have the thing itself. the statement that 2+2=5 has become shorthand for not only a logical error, but also for dangerous forms of mind control. we all know, and must not forget, that 2+2 always equals four.
the problem is that sometimes the parts of something add up to more than their sum. i may have four sunflowers lying on a table in my house, waiting to be trimmed and put in a vase of water. and they are just four sunflowers. but when i see four sunflowers laying on a table in a van gogh painting, they're more than just four sunflowers. they're also a work of art.
this is particularly true, in my opinion, of poetry. tonight on my way home, i happened to catch garrison keillor's writer's almanac for the day. the five-minute mini-program consists of interesting tidbits of literary history, factoids about authors' lives, and a poem. tonight keillor read the poem "how to tell if you're a participant or a staff (a handy guide for day programs)" by david moreau. i listened as the narrator listed all the ways in which to discern whether you are staff or participant, all the while waiting for that something that would turn this rather mundane list of statements into the magic of poetry. because poetry has magic in it. all poetry. even poetry that i dislike. i'm sorry i can't explain it better than calling it magic, but i can't. and this poem--it didn't have it. sure, it calls attention to the difficulties of being in the position of needing assistance in daily living. it nicely illustrates some of the simple things that you and i take for granted every day. and achieving that is worthy of a literary effort. but there is nothing that this work does that demands it be poetry. it would have been as effective written in prose format. the only thing that makes it poetry is the fact that it's been broken into verse shape and labeled "poem." and poetry is not like 2+2=4. words written in verse form do not a poem make. poetry is always more than the sum of its parts.
04 March 2007
happy.
on wednesday this week i finished my paper. it took nearly two weeks of daily thought-grind, a perpetually sore backside, and enough grit to force myself through the almost daily feeling that i was reinventing the wheel everytime i sat down to work on it. but thanks to two-and-a-half dozen cans of diet dr. pepper and, more importantly, the encouragement and support of good friends (especially seymour, who forced me to take the occasional break for sustenance and put up with my apparently maddeningly noncommittal progress reports), i managed.
and you know what? it made me happy. and excited. as hard as it was to articulate all the thoughts about the moonstone that had been whirling around my mind for the last three months, it felt good to make the connections and build an argument and say something interesting and, i think, important about community.
you may have surmised by now that i'm going back to school. but i made the decision before i finished the paper. a while ago now, actually. a decision that i did not want to make a decision based on what would make it easier to get through the day; that i wanted to do what brings me fulfillment and happiness, not what is second best. a decision that while i may not always be able to control feeling discouraged or lonely or occasionally depressed, i can control my reactions to it. a decision to take the gifts i think i've been given and make something of them--including this opportunity i have to earn this degree.
i was surprisingly at peace throughout the writing process, in spite of the stress i felt. so much so that a friend commented a week and a half ago that i looked happier and more at peace than i had for a long time. the last few days the world has felt like a beautiful place and my life has felt light and full of opportunity. maybe because for the first time in a long time, it felt like i could manage all of the aspects of my life. maybe because i surprised myself by writing the paper by my self-imposed deadline. maybe because i'm simply letting myself be.
on wednesday this week i finished my paper. it took nearly two weeks of daily thought-grind, a perpetually sore backside, and enough grit to force myself through the almost daily feeling that i was reinventing the wheel everytime i sat down to work on it. but thanks to two-and-a-half dozen cans of diet dr. pepper and, more importantly, the encouragement and support of good friends (especially seymour, who forced me to take the occasional break for sustenance and put up with my apparently maddeningly noncommittal progress reports), i managed.
and you know what? it made me happy. and excited. as hard as it was to articulate all the thoughts about the moonstone that had been whirling around my mind for the last three months, it felt good to make the connections and build an argument and say something interesting and, i think, important about community.
you may have surmised by now that i'm going back to school. but i made the decision before i finished the paper. a while ago now, actually. a decision that i did not want to make a decision based on what would make it easier to get through the day; that i wanted to do what brings me fulfillment and happiness, not what is second best. a decision that while i may not always be able to control feeling discouraged or lonely or occasionally depressed, i can control my reactions to it. a decision to take the gifts i think i've been given and make something of them--including this opportunity i have to earn this degree.
i was surprisingly at peace throughout the writing process, in spite of the stress i felt. so much so that a friend commented a week and a half ago that i looked happier and more at peace than i had for a long time. the last few days the world has felt like a beautiful place and my life has felt light and full of opportunity. maybe because for the first time in a long time, it felt like i could manage all of the aspects of my life. maybe because i surprised myself by writing the paper by my self-imposed deadline. maybe because i'm simply letting myself be.
17 August 2006
cahier.
yesterday morning, i sat on my bed listening to NPR, and opened my new moleskine notebook. legend has it that moleskine notebooks were used by artists and poets and writers all through the 20th century, carried in pockets of van gogh and hemingway and picasso, traveling around the globe as the avant-garde found inspiration for their imaginings. probably the manufacturer of this incarnation of the moleskine has simply tapped into a beautiful marketing scheme, but these artists did in fact use pocket-sized notebooks. repositories for flashes of insight and skeletons of future works of genius.
there's something magical about a blank notebook or journal. empty pages, waiting to be filled. even when all that's inscribed there is ordinary, mundane bits of information, they tell a story of a life. and, in amongst the mundanities, there are bits and pieces of wisdom and brilliance and passion. sometimes insights of my own. sometimes those of others far more gifted than i, culled from the world around me as i wander museums and bookstores and the mall. yes. the mall. it's amazing where inspiration appears unbidden.
just as i finished unwrapping my black, grid-lined notebook with a pocket at the back to hold treasures, my mama walked into my room holding something in her hand, saying "i think i'll send these to madelyn." when she got closer, i saw that she was holding three or four old notebooks of mine--relics of my childhood interest in hello kitty. but also the ancestors of my continuing love of a blank book, ready to be filled with thoughts and ideas.
yesterday morning, i sat on my bed listening to NPR, and opened my new moleskine notebook. legend has it that moleskine notebooks were used by artists and poets and writers all through the 20th century, carried in pockets of van gogh and hemingway and picasso, traveling around the globe as the avant-garde found inspiration for their imaginings. probably the manufacturer of this incarnation of the moleskine has simply tapped into a beautiful marketing scheme, but these artists did in fact use pocket-sized notebooks. repositories for flashes of insight and skeletons of future works of genius.
there's something magical about a blank notebook or journal. empty pages, waiting to be filled. even when all that's inscribed there is ordinary, mundane bits of information, they tell a story of a life. and, in amongst the mundanities, there are bits and pieces of wisdom and brilliance and passion. sometimes insights of my own. sometimes those of others far more gifted than i, culled from the world around me as i wander museums and bookstores and the mall. yes. the mall. it's amazing where inspiration appears unbidden.
just as i finished unwrapping my black, grid-lined notebook with a pocket at the back to hold treasures, my mama walked into my room holding something in her hand, saying "i think i'll send these to madelyn." when she got closer, i saw that she was holding three or four old notebooks of mine--relics of my childhood interest in hello kitty. but also the ancestors of my continuing love of a blank book, ready to be filled with thoughts and ideas.
03 February 2006
falling with style.
this round of grad school has been an exercise in sheer determination in the face of what always seem like utterly insurmountable odds. i find myself fighting constantly for breath; trying to scrape together enough thoughts on a similar topic to call it a paper or a presentation. fighting my conviction that i don't have what it takes. battling all the cognitive dissonance i experience with some regularity as a result of my bizarre mental-emotional constellation of feminism, mormonism, intellectualism, and the never-absent need for marriage. i invariably end up a crying mess at more than one moment each quarter. and then i think that i just can't do it and i don't know why i ever tried and i should quit. but i keep coming back. either i am a masochist or i am really driven. when i'm enjoying my studies as much as i have been recently, i know i'm doing it because i love the thinking and the teaching and the exploring ideas. i love seeing my students work through ideas and i love thinking new things because of what they said. but when i'm stressed to the breaking point and i'm lonely and i realize that there is no way humanly possible to complete all my work, i collapse into a weepy mess--something that happens unfortunately often in front of other people.
regardless of my mental state, school seems like an exercise in survival. i've begun to reach a point where i realize that this is just the way it is and that it means nothing about my own abilities. grad school just kind of stinks, to put it oh-so-eloquently. today as i walked home from teaching a lesson which mercifully went well, given the fact that i hadn't really thought about it until immediately before teaching it, i called my little sister to say hi. and as i was explaining to her how my week has been (and it's been hellish), i thought of that scene in toy story where buzz "flies" and woody responds, "that's not flying ... that's falling with style!" it occurred to me that grad school is exactly that. it's not flying. it's falling--with style. taking the jump off some high point and hoping that as you fall you find ideas and thoughts and works and projects that give you enough bounce to make it look like you're flying, even though in reality all you're doing is plummeting down, drawn by the inexorable pull of gravity.
maybe, if i fall with enough style, i'll make it through and even end up with a job some day. here's to being stylish.
this round of grad school has been an exercise in sheer determination in the face of what always seem like utterly insurmountable odds. i find myself fighting constantly for breath; trying to scrape together enough thoughts on a similar topic to call it a paper or a presentation. fighting my conviction that i don't have what it takes. battling all the cognitive dissonance i experience with some regularity as a result of my bizarre mental-emotional constellation of feminism, mormonism, intellectualism, and the never-absent need for marriage. i invariably end up a crying mess at more than one moment each quarter. and then i think that i just can't do it and i don't know why i ever tried and i should quit. but i keep coming back. either i am a masochist or i am really driven. when i'm enjoying my studies as much as i have been recently, i know i'm doing it because i love the thinking and the teaching and the exploring ideas. i love seeing my students work through ideas and i love thinking new things because of what they said. but when i'm stressed to the breaking point and i'm lonely and i realize that there is no way humanly possible to complete all my work, i collapse into a weepy mess--something that happens unfortunately often in front of other people.
regardless of my mental state, school seems like an exercise in survival. i've begun to reach a point where i realize that this is just the way it is and that it means nothing about my own abilities. grad school just kind of stinks, to put it oh-so-eloquently. today as i walked home from teaching a lesson which mercifully went well, given the fact that i hadn't really thought about it until immediately before teaching it, i called my little sister to say hi. and as i was explaining to her how my week has been (and it's been hellish), i thought of that scene in toy story where buzz "flies" and woody responds, "that's not flying ... that's falling with style!" it occurred to me that grad school is exactly that. it's not flying. it's falling--with style. taking the jump off some high point and hoping that as you fall you find ideas and thoughts and works and projects that give you enough bounce to make it look like you're flying, even though in reality all you're doing is plummeting down, drawn by the inexorable pull of gravity.
maybe, if i fall with enough style, i'll make it through and even end up with a job some day. here's to being stylish.
30 August 2005
write.
this often happens. i write in my journal. regularly. explore ideas and thoughts and experiences. try to understand myself. and then. silence. sometimes years of it. they always seem to happen when life becomes hardest. when perhaps i need to be writing the most. fleshing out my problems. ranting. weeping. laughing hysterically over odd little things that jolt me out of my funk and make me know, again, that life is good and lovely and beautiful.
it is time to break silence again. one of my best friends told me once that to write is to think. that without writing, one cannot think. i don't know how absolute that statement is, but in some way it is right. i would add that to converse is to think. i have existed thinking only in spurts. randomly. when compelled to because i'd rather converse with my friends than sit a sullen lump. but lately i have realized how much i miss thinking. all the time. hard, laughing, wailing, rigorous, silly, exhilerating, mundane thinking.
so i will write.
this often happens. i write in my journal. regularly. explore ideas and thoughts and experiences. try to understand myself. and then. silence. sometimes years of it. they always seem to happen when life becomes hardest. when perhaps i need to be writing the most. fleshing out my problems. ranting. weeping. laughing hysterically over odd little things that jolt me out of my funk and make me know, again, that life is good and lovely and beautiful.
it is time to break silence again. one of my best friends told me once that to write is to think. that without writing, one cannot think. i don't know how absolute that statement is, but in some way it is right. i would add that to converse is to think. i have existed thinking only in spurts. randomly. when compelled to because i'd rather converse with my friends than sit a sullen lump. but lately i have realized how much i miss thinking. all the time. hard, laughing, wailing, rigorous, silly, exhilerating, mundane thinking.
so i will write.
21 November 2002
medium.
strange. i've been thinking about this medium for a month now, fascinated with the idea of writing to everyone and no one at the same time. and here i am with my very own. didn't know that was possible without being capable of creating it myself. should have known better--you can do anything with the web. here's a link to what set me off on this whole blog thing. it's my friend john's site. i suppose i can call him my friend, though technically i don't know him that well. anyway, his site is mindonfire.com i love it. enough for now. i want to see if this actually worked.
strange. i've been thinking about this medium for a month now, fascinated with the idea of writing to everyone and no one at the same time. and here i am with my very own. didn't know that was possible without being capable of creating it myself. should have known better--you can do anything with the web. here's a link to what set me off on this whole blog thing. it's my friend john's site. i suppose i can call him my friend, though technically i don't know him that well. anyway, his site is mindonfire.com i love it. enough for now. i want to see if this actually worked.
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